D: P.J. Hogan
S: Toni Colette, Bill Hunter, Rachel Griffiths.
The distance between product and package on this smash hit must give pause
to anyone interested in selling (or buying) motion pictures. What was brilliantly
marketed as a standard-issue feel-good comedy (cashing in on the earlier
International success of Strictly Ballroom) turns out to be an interestingly
modulated meditation on issues surrounding peer culture and personal identity
set against a quirky Australian backdrop. It seems to be a story of an ugly
fat girl who discovers herself through singing Abba songs and thumbing her
nose at her cliquish school friends and eventually finds herself a husband
as she's always dreamed. But there's a lot more to it than that, both in
terms of plot and in the manner in which it renders its cinematic world
as a mixture of self-induced fantasy and surreal reality.
Australian films about dysfunctional characters have been many and varied
over time, including, in recent years Bad Boy Bubby, Sweetie,
Mr. Reliable, and even the Mad Max trilogy. Muriel's Wedding
posits the same kind of sociological and psychological disorder which defines
the world of these films, but suggests a solution in the form of the emotional
independence which Muriel must develop in the course of the film. Her family
is an often frighteningly unfunny collection of miscreants who nonetheless
inspire occasional laughter (and pity), her home town is a bleak and deadening
place which is imagistically familiar and emotionally resonant (even though
it is named Porpoise Spit), and the combination of the shockingly real and
the defiantly unreal results in a constant shifting of tone which keeps
the viewer on their toes or alienates them completely.
Muriel's path from a life of predetermined social roles to one of a fully
realised sense of herself is both convincing and fantastical, a difficult
feat for any director, but one which Hogan manages with apparent ease. It
eventually involves you in the real human drama while presenting a bevy
of damaged personalities and a twisted world which can only inspire nervous
laughter or repulsion. But Hogan manages to escape the quicksand of weirdness
which sucked Jane Campion's Sweetie into the realms of unwatchability
by virtue of some simple comic slapstick, caricature and enjoyable musical
interludes, and this is the material which filled out the trailer for the
movie.
It's not that it's a matter of deception. It is still a funny film which
does make you feel at least relatively good by the end. But its aims and
ambitions are far above the standard romantic comedy (including, interestingly,
Strictly Ballroom). The stylistic schizophrenia complements the story
of self-delusion and realisation which is played out on screen. The wedding
itself is a marriage of convenience with a South African swimmer eager to
beat immigration laws, and though Muriel enters into it with some romantic
expectations, by the time she comes out the other side with a separation
she has realised both the value of romance and its place in her life. The
wedding then becomes a symbol of self-discovery rather than of the cementing
of social status it usually represents, and romance comes to occupy the
most chillingly ambiguous position it has occupied since the climax of The
Graduate.
Performances are good all round, featuring plenty of the now familiar sweaty
Australian character actors and showcasing Colete in the lead in a likable
and convincing turn as Muriel. The film on the whole provides enough entertainment
to keep the audience happy and enough discursive material to make it worth
their while. It is far from what you might expect given the trailer, but
not all that surprising considering the recent output of Australian cinema
on the whole. Be warned though: it may be difficult to know just when to
laugh and when not to, and not everyone will find it tasteful.
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.